Before measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles. An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between 1953 and 1963.

Was measles a major health problem between 1953 and 1963? Were parents begging for a vaccine? Terrified that their child would die or be permanently damaged by a dangerous disease? Well, no. Some here could give their answer to that question, but better still, ask your parents, and grand-parents what they thought about measles. Find out who in your family was “at risk” of serious complications or death.

The big question, when you see a death rate, is how many deaths occur in relation to the total number of cases? The reported cases, with something like measles, are always going to be much lower than the total cases, and reported cases will generally be more severe, more likely to be hospitalized, and more likely to have a bad outcome. I had measles when I was eight, but my parents didn’t report my case of measles, I never saw a doctor and no one in my family (including two younger siblings) caught it from me. Here, from the CDC Pink Book, is the complete story:

Before 1963, approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every 2–3 years. However, the actual number of cases was estimated at 3–4 million annually. More than 50% of persons had measles by age 6, and more than 90% had measles by age 15. The highest incidence was among 5–9-year-olds, who generally accounted for more than 50% of reported cases.

So, what was the death rate? I’m going to take the 3 million cases and the 450 annual deaths: One death for every 6,500 cases approximately. This is why parents tried to expose their children to measles, rather than being terrified that they might catch measles. Everyone knew that measles is more dangerous in adults, so you wanted to be sure that your kid had them during childhood.

Back to the CDC’s information for parents page called “What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinating”:

In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized. Seventeen percent of measles cases have had one or more complications, such as ear infections, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Pneumonia is present in about six percent of cases and accounts for most of the measles deaths. Although less common, some persons with measles develop encephalitis (swelling of the lining of the brain), resulting in brain damage.

This paragraph isn’t very clear, because there are no dates included. Obviously, these stats don’t apply to the period between 1953 and 1963, when measles ran rampant and millions of children had it every year. If they did, they would be able to show pictures of wards filled with measles victims. Hmm, 20% of 3 million would be: 600,000 children per year being hospitalized as a result of measles. Yep, we would have heard about that.

What could have made measles turn so dangerous between the 50′s and the end of the 20th century?

Well, there are multiple factors, which I’ll take one by one:

First, again from the Pink Book–

In addition, measles susceptibility of infants younger than 1 year of age may have increased. During the 1989–1991 measles resurgence, incidence rates for infants were more than twice as high as those in any other age group. The mothers of many infants who developed measles were young, and their measles immunity was most often due to vaccination rather than infection with wild virus. As a result, a smaller amount of antibody was transferred across the placenta to the fetus, compared with antibody transfer from mothers who had higher antibody titers resulting from wild-virus infection. The lower quantity of antibody resulted in immunity that waned more rapidly, making infants susceptible at a younger age than in the past.

Translation: Mother Nature knows more about protecting infants from measles than we do.

Step 1 in turning measles from a normal childhood illness into a deadly disease is to eliminate or diminish the immunity that infants used to receive from their moms.

Step 2 is to reduce herd immunity among adults. If you had measles as a child, you are very likely to have lifelong immunity. People born before 1957 in the U.S., probably have had measles (95% roughly) and are, therefore, permanently immune. No measles vaccine can provide this degree of immunity on the population level.

The vaccination-induced measles virus antibodies decline in the absence of natural booster infections. It is important to follow how long the protection achieved by the present vaccine programme will last after elimination of indigenous measles.¹

and

In contrast, the other 14 children with initial titers of less than 5 had secondary immune responses (only IgG measles antibody) with GMTs of 28 and 9 three weeks and ten months after vaccination. Since the antibody responses in these children who had previously been stimulated by measles antigen were modest and transient, it is suggested that booster immunization may not be effective in preventing future secondary vaccine failures.²

But the CDC says:

This replication causes the body to develop an immunity that, in 95% of children, lasts for a lifetime.

A second dose of the vaccine is recommended to protect those 5% who did not develop immunity in the first dose and to give “booster” effect to those who did develop an immune response.³

Since measles is more deadly in adults, measles nowadays is a much more dangerous disease. Millions of adults are not immune to measles because they were vaccinated in childhood and their vaccine immunity has waned.

Step 3 is to use bad statistics to make a bad situation look even worse than it actually is. The problem is underreporting:

Measles surveillance is complex: the patient must seek health care, the diagnosis must be recognized by the physician, and the case must be reported to health departments. The portion of total (incident) measles cases that is reported to health departments is termed “completeness of reporting.” Few studies describe this measure of the quality of surveillance in the United States; these studies use different methods, but they are all limited because the actual number of measles cases needed to derive completeness of reporting could not be determined.
Estimates of completeness of reporting from the 1980s and 1990s vary widely, from 3% to 58%. One study suggests that 85% of patients with measles sought health care, the proportion of compatible illnesses for which measles was considered varied from 13% to 75%, and the proportion of suspected cases that were reported varied from 22% to 67%. Few cases were laboratory-confirmed, but all were reported. Surveillance in the United States is responsive, and its sensitivity likely increases when measles is circulating. Continued efforts to reinforce the clinical recognition and reporting of measles cases are warranted. 4

The CDC’s Parents’ Pages continue:

As many as three of every 1,000 persons with measles will die in the U.S. In the developing world, the rate is much higher, with death occurring in about one of every 100 persons with measles.

This is an amazing statistic: one in every 333 people who are ill with measles in the U.S. will die. The end result of many years of vaccination has been to transform a mild childhood disease that killed one person out of 6,500 into a disease that is almost as deadly as it is in the developing world, where people struggle with hunger and sanitation problems. But, before we buy this stat (uncited, as usual), we should look again at the problem of under-reporting of measles cases. If only 50% of the cases in the outbreak in question (which one it is we will never know) were reported, then the death rate drops from 3 in 1,000 to 3 in 2,000. If 25% of the cases were reported then the actual death rate would have been 3 in 4,000. Still bad, though.

The big question, and one to which I’ll be returning again and again in this series, is why is the CDC lying to parents? Obviously, it isn’t due to ignorance, since they have accurate information available in The Pink Book, published on the same web-site by the same organization. Does the CDC believe the only way to keep vaccination rates high is to frighten parents with fake numbers of deaths and injuries?

To be continued–the next article will look at Pertussis–the craziest stats of all!

Comments

32 Comments on Measles: The Grim Reality

It is pretty obvious to me MMR kills way more kids now than measles would be doing with or without the vaccine, as deaths declined by 99.4% before vaccination (England and Wales 1901/2-1968)

Jupiter on
Sun, 3rd Feb 2008 1:42 pm

I don’t know about that…

I’ve thought about this before, and varicella deaths haven’t gone down much since the 60′s/70′s. Maybe measles deaths would have continued to decline, or maybe not. Chickenpox has held pretty steady, though.

I haven’t seen any evidence that the MMR causes 450 deaths a year in the US. Of course, our reporting system sucks, so we’re kind of left guessing, but really doubt it’s 450 or more a year.

Roland on
Sun, 3rd Feb 2008 3:24 pm

Right, Jupiter, we’re left guessing and I also doubt that MMR causes 450 deaths a year in the US – but it’s hard to evaluate.

Anyway we don’t really know about any reduction the measles and MMR vaccines may have inflicted on the death cases and if – maybe – there are still some 400 “measles” death cases today which are simply not accounted for.

We don’t even know if “measles” before the vaccination era were the same as “measles” are today – that is because nowadays only a small fraction of clinically (symptomatically) diagnosed cases are confirmed by laboratories. It’s a pretty safe guess that in the 50s and 60s almost no laboratory tests were perfomed – it should be clear what this change in diagnosis can do to the statistics.

Jupiter on
Sun, 3rd Feb 2008 5:08 pm

***”and if – maybe there are still some 400 “measles” death cases today which are simply not accounted for. “****

I’ve wondered about that before, too, but I don’t think so, because *some* of them would be diagnosed correctly. There’s just no way that *all* of them would be missed. If you have measles circulating in a decades deep post-vaccine society, measles will hit infants the hardest mortality-wise, and some of them would be tested for measles.

It’s the *complete lack* of measles deaths in the US that shows that shows that it can’t really be circulating to any significant degree at all. In my opinion, at least.

Roland on
Mon, 4th Feb 2008 3:37 am

My personal opinion is, that the view of a “circulating” malignant virus is a wrong or, at least, skewed one, because of the individual “susceptibility” (living conditions) and the “meaning” or “purpose” associated with the disease.

Keeping that in mind I’m pretty convinced there would have been a further decline in measles incidence regardless of vaccination. But that does not answer questions like “how much did it actually decline?” and “is the almost complete lack of measles deaths proof of elimination (for whatever reason)?”

I’d like to point out some further problems with the diagnosis to strengthen my view:
First, it is almost inconceivable for an allopathic doctor to diagnose a *vaccinated* child with measles, as most of them believe in vaccination. It requires full blown symptoms (and maybe even some already confirmed cases in the vicinity) before a doctor even thinks about requesting confirmation by a laboratory. If 98% of the population are vaccinated and only 10% of the suspects are confirmed, that means that chances are pretty low you will find such a diagnosis.

Additionally there are some indications that full blown measles symptoms (rash) are not very common today – they call it “atypical measles”, which is not necessarily a more benign form. Maybe that can be attributed to a “natural” change in the disease, but some non-allopathic doctors consider it more likely that this is a sign of a certain “lack of vitality”, possibly induced by vaccines and other poisons (environmental or drugs) . Anyway, this “atypical” appearance further skews the diagnosis.

When it comes to the determination of a cause of death I guess it’s also a political question. Keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to die of measles itself, but rather of some “complications”. So instead of listing “measles” as the cause of death (which is probably politically unwanted) the coroner can call it pneumonia, meningitis, …

Jupiter on
Mon, 4th Feb 2008 2:41 pm

***”Keeping that in mind I’m pretty convinced there would have been a further decline in measles incidence regardless of vaccination. But that does not answer questions like “how much did it actually decline?”***

But the thing is, measles *incidence* didn’t decline before mass immunization. *Death* from measles had declined a massive amount, but not incidence. You can look at the blood (and I’ll find a study if you want) of people born before the vaccine, and they universally are immune. That wouldn’t be the case if measles incidence was declining before the vaccine.

Regarding atypical measles, that is, as far as I know, only caused by previous vaccination with a defective measles vaccine and then challenge with the wild virus. It’s generally thought that the old killed virus vaccine from the 60′s is the main culprit there, but I have heard that if the live vaccine isn’t stored properly at some point and the live viruses “die”, it can cause it, as well.
So you might have a point that there is a bit more measles in the US than recognised, but the atypical presentation prevents proper diagnosis.

Still…
I think we’d be having some infant (under 12 months) deaths diagnosed properly if we had significant measles circulation in the US. Babies under 12 months aren’t vaccinated for measles, so that removes a bit of the “this person is vaccinated, so it must be something else” diagnostic problem, as well.

Schwartz on
Mon, 4th Feb 2008 9:07 pm

Some thoughts.

Measles is extremely virulant, and 1 death in 6500 is still a big enough number when applied across a large population.

Would you support measles vaccination for those children IF you could test for adverse reactions ahead of time and determine who is at risk from the vaccine?

MinorityView on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 6:51 am

Speaking as the author of this article: I didn’t actually recommend either for or against measles vaccination. The only points I was trying to make were that:
1)The CDC is not providing accurate information about measles
and
2)Measles vaccination has made measles more dangerous than it used to be.

We can only hope that we don’t have an outbreak. However, if we do have an outbreak, all the problems will be blamed on parents who choose not to vaccinate, rather than on a faulty policy which leaves two very vulnerable populations unprotected–adults and babies. I’d love to see the vaccine promoters actually take responsibility for the results of their planning, rather than searching for someone else to blame.

Including the evidence deaths declined by 99.4% before vaccination, which just by itself invalidates vaccination. And if you follow the graph down to today it would be 2-3 deaths which is a fraction of what MMR kills. Even though the government has paid out for MMR deaths they still deny it kills and is completely safe, which sums up people like Salisbury.

Of course, the big vaccine killer is the fact Vitamin C would prevent all deaths and make vaccination unecessary, hence all deaths and vaccine reactions like autism, known since 1949, which kind of exposes Allopathy in a big way.

Then you have the fact it is harmless under proper medical care, even without vitamin C. And we all know how they fearmonger diseases to sell vaccination.

As for measles incidence, it is just a smokescreen to hide the deaths decline facts which show up vaccination.

Jupiter on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 10:54 am

***”Measles is extremely virulant, and 1 death in 6500 is still a big enough number when applied across a large population.

Would you support measles vaccination for those children IF you could test for adverse reactions ahead of time and determine who is at risk from the vaccine?”***

As far as vaccines go, measles is definitely one of the better ones. You’re right….one in 6,500 does add up to a lot of death over the course of the population.
While developing a test to see which kids would have a problem with the vaccine would definitely be a good thing, I don’t think “science” will be at that point in my lifetime. We’re just not there yet. An alternative for the US (because all of our measles cases are imported at this point) would be devising a method of preventing measles importation. Then vaccination could at least be delayed till an older age.

Another big part of the problem with the situation in the US is this insane “all or nothing” situation with exemptions and mandates. If you exempt out of one shot, you’re not supposed to get ANY of them. You can’t (or, you’re not supposed to) skip the HepA and flu shot, but still do measles. It’s all or nothing, and it puts parents in a very awkward position many times. Babies in the US are getting 7 or 8 shots in one visit, for increasingly “undeadly” diseases, and there are many more shots in the pipeline, with no end to the increasing mandates in sight.
So you’re supposed to opt in for the whole enchilada, or enroll in the control group.

Seems like a strange way of operating public health to me.

Athena on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 1:24 pm

John-
Let’s just take this one point at a time:

Measles death decline: 1963- measles vaccine licensed. Incidence was 385,156 (lowest since 1950) and deaths were 364. These numbers did not significantly drop until 4 years later (1967)when incidence dropped to 62,705 and deaths to 81. There was no gradual decline resulting in lessened incidence and/deaths as you’re attempting to demonstrate.

This statement does not mean that the MMR is safe. It supports the article’s author in the statement that prior to 1963 EVERYONE got the measles (unreported incidence is probably quite high if 95% of the population got measles by 15-let’s stick with the author’s 3 million) so in light of that fact, 364 deaths were statistically QUITE less than what we are seeing now since the vaccine has effectively pushed incidence to a smaller/more susceptable adult population and has all but annihilated natural immunity.

Vitamin C: Whether or not Vitamin C would prevent all deaths and make vaccinations unnecessary is an unknown. I believe in the case of measles, primary treatment would be Vit A (with doses of Vit C to boost the immune system); I cannot ascribe to the notion that there would be absolutely zero deaths if we just used Vitamin C. However, I cannot ascribe to the “vaccines have saved us from common childhood illnesses” notion either.

“As for measles incidence, it is just a smokescreen to hide the deaths decline facts which show up vaccination.” So, do you not believe that measles incidence has in fact gone down? Or are you stating that incidence has been forced to go down in order to “explain” the lower death rates? Or do you believe that deaths would be in the single digits by now without vaccination, given the nature of the virus?

I, personally, am not sure where measles deaths would be today without vaccination. I doubt the number would be in the single digits (given complications from the common cold show more than that). However, I also doubt that we are being given complete information with which to make our decision. This article demonstrates that to the nth degree.

john on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 3:00 pm

“However, I also doubt that we are being given complete information with which to make our decision.”

Well of course you aren’t, if you were you wouldn’t vaccinate, which is why you have to start looking and thinking for yourself!!

quite apart from its heart disease and cot-death prevention http://whale.to/w/vitamin_c.html …
{Note: final section of post was deleted because our moderating team decided to limit links to two per post from now on, sorry}

Athena on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 4:25 pm

I have to respectfully disagree with what you’re posting from whale.to. I have not found that their information typically meets my personal “reputable and verifiable source” guidelines.

That said, let’s make sure this discussion stays on track with the “measles” theme.

Schwartz on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 6:20 pm

MinorityView,

I realize you didn’t take a position on the topic of vaccination. I also think that while it is very good to point out these problems (as I have been doing for a while), one also has to propose solutions.

Do you have a position on whether you would choose to vaccinate children under certain conditions?

I can state firmly, that both my children remained unvaccinated until recently (one had to get a DTaP because of risk of Tetanus at age 6) and clearly I choose to vaccinate under very specific conditions.

Schwartz on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 6:24 pm

John,

There is certainly evidence that Measles deaths did decline due to vaccination. However, the decline that one can attribute to vaccines is at the very end of the overall decline.

Alas, the same problems that plague the CDC statements (lack of credible evidence) also plague your own. We do not have credible evidence that MMR kills more children than measles did. Your method of argument is effectively equivalent to that of the CDC… flawed.

I fully support the idea that MMR is potentially causing harm to a subset of children, but it is important in a scientific debate to provide credible evidence. Otherwise you are guilty of the same sins of the CDC and medicine in general.

Minority View on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 6:36 pm

Schwartz,
My children are all grown-up, so it isn’t my job to decide to vaccinate them or not vaccinate them at this point. I don’t believe in telling other people what to do, as an individual, nor do I approve of people in power ordering other people around for the common good. What I want to do is to provide information and let folks make up their own minds and freely choose their own actions. I’m going to reiterate the main point of the original blog article: parents are not provided with accurate information, therefore they cannot make informed decisions, here are some of the the things they aren’t being told about measles.

Schwartz on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 6:39 pm

Jupiter,

I can sympathize with your unfortunate situation in the US. Fortunately, I do not have the same problem because in Canada my right to abstain myself and my children is constitutionally guaranteed. I’ve also had no difficulty in dealing with my Paed, who is perfectly willing to go along with any vaccine combination or schedule I choose.

Given the increase in globalization, I think it likely that importation will become more difficult to stop, and is likely not a good solution. Even if you think that things won’t change, I think it is still important when complaining to recommend a solution.

I am interested at what ages the measles virus is the most damaging. If it is older ages, then that alone might provide a window to delay vaccination.

I suspect tests to determine vaccine reactivity would not be that hard to create if effort was put toward the cause. We currently have ways of testing allergies to hundreds of things, and there are alternative therapies that claim to be able to detect allergies through machines rather than scratch tests.

fyrestorm on
Tue, 5th Feb 2008 8:40 pm

If they started testing for susceptability, they have to admit that there was a problem in the first place. Since they will never admit this, there will not be any testing or tests developed.

john on
Wed, 6th Feb 2008 2:10 pm

Schwartz . Your comments reminded me of Salisbury’s:

“I asked you for evidence that demonstrated that deaths were actually caused by the Urabe strain, and you have singularly failed to provide any evidence whatsoever. You have provided media reports, opinions of parents, and decisions of tribunals or courts. These are not evidence of causality that implicates the Urabe vaccine. Nobody would disagree that deaths have been reported after MMR vaccines. But deaths after vaccination are very different from deaths caused by vaccination.”—Dr David Salisbury, director of immunisation, department of health, London 19.03.07

Vaccinators have been singing the same denial song about vaccine deaths for 2 centuries, at the end of the day we make up our own minds about the truth.

These are the death facts about smallpox vaccine from 1880—killing 25,000 babies a year, and that is easy to prove from government statistics and from the statistics from Leicester http://whale.to/a/deathssmallpox.html who incidently proved all by themselves the fallacy of smallpox vaccination over 30 years of not vaccinating.

Do you think anyone would be listening to your assurances about MMR deaths if they knew that? I don’t think so.

and I think FOIA on MMR and DPT deaths is a good indication of the truth http://whale.to/vaccine/miller333.html , given that only 1-10% of vaccine reactions get reported, according even to the FDA.

And 99.4% decline in measles deaths before vaccination (UK) is not evidence vaccination did anything. It is overwhelming evidence it did absolutely nothing.

“There are some easy figures which the simplest must understand, but the astutest cannot wriggle out of.” –Disraeli (ref)

Schwartz on
Wed, 6th Feb 2008 7:32 pm

John,

Please point out anywhere that I gave any assurances on MMR deaths? The FOIA does not provide accurate information on the breakdown of the DTP vs MMR deaths and it is not referenced, so I don’t see how either of us can verify those numbers.

Even if we assume that only 1 death was due to DTP, you have ~ 350 deaths for the US. In the article, here, they were estimatating 450 deaths (1 in 6500) due to measles.

PS: Neither of my children have received MMR…

john on
Thu, 7th Feb 2008 1:48 pm

90 deaths from both (and having to use FOIA is a red flag), so a very conservative stab would say 10 deaths from MMR, especially when around only 3% of reactions are reported, and if you follow the measles death graph to 1990, say, you would get less deaths than that. Vaccinators can say what they want to obfuscate those figures (and secrecy is one way–try and get any facts around measles deaths, as well as vaccine status from NHS—secrecy is an indication of something to hide).

I don’t think any parent would argue with that analysis, and you have to make you own mind up as the government is suppressing data.

Then you factor in the fact over 50% of the measles deaths are vaccinated.

And the fact deaths are due to bad medical practice as Dr Donegan points out:

“Under normal conditions, healthy children do not die from or become disabled from the complications of measles and if they do, questions should be asked about their management.” —Jayne Donegan MB

I don’t believe for a moment 1 in 6,500 children die from measles. In 1967 there were 2 deaths per million population. Any statistic offered by well proven 200 year old compulsive liars has to be questioned, especially when they have a pecuniary and professional interest (hence the lies) in vaccination and making out measles is dangerous.

If that stat is true then it would be purely due to vaccination making the disease more dangerous. Either way not good for vaccinators.

If they are afraid of measles then let the homeopaths and naturopaths, or nutritional medical doctors take over, who aren’t, so we can all sleep at night and worry about something else.

Good decision about your kids and MMR, now you just have to dump the lot. Playing Russian Roulette with their life and yours (you can end up a 24/7 carer), for no benefit, isn’t gambling, it’s something else.

Schwartz on
Thu, 7th Feb 2008 10:08 pm

John,

Only my eldest (5 years) recently got a single DPTaP due to an injury and concern over Tetanus.

I won’t argue about the data suppression, just that we don’t have good numbers as to whether Measles mortality would have continued to decline or if it had reached a natural level given our modern society. What if you could perform a test to determine which children would react negatively to the vaccine first? Would you support it then, or do you believe that vaccination in general just isn’t effective?

jules on
Sun, 17th Feb 2008 2:13 pm

Vitamin A is the #1 treatment for Measles. The only children who will die or have complications to measles are those deficient in Vit A.

In 1963 the first Measles vaccine was licensed and it was the killed measles vaccine, not what they use today. It wasn’t given to many, which was a good thing, because it was eventually removed and wrought with problems.

In 1967, the live vaccine was given. This too was not used widely, and also wrought with problems.

The MMR was licensed in 1971. They have known since 1979 that the Measles component still has problems.

Herd Immunity?
During the 1991 US outbreak, over 1/2 of the deaths had been vaccinated and in immunocompromised people.

Germany doesn’t rountinely use the Measles vaccine. They found the risks for reactions too high.

Since the MMR is a LIVE vaccine, newly vaccinated children can shed the virus.

MEASLES VACCINE VIRUS:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q…_uids=11858860
the vaccine virus was isolated in the throat, showing that subcutaneous injection of an attenuated measles strain can result in respiratory excretion of this virus.

MUMPS VACCINE VIRUS:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q…_uids=11163655
viral RNA was detected in four samples from three vaccine recipients, 18, 18 and 26, and 7 days after vaccination, respectively. Detected viral RNA was identified as the vaccine strain. Our data suggests that vaccine virus inoculated replicates in the parotid glands but the incidence of virus transmission from recipients to other susceptible subjects should be low.

“should be low” …but what do they really know??

Measles is a virulant illness. It will come and go in cycles as history has shown vaccinated or not.

It is also helps the maturation process in children. Many can make huge developmental milestones after having Measles. Did you also know that children who get Measles are often cured of their eczema. Same goes for psorasis. A child on dialysis will often improve. It also helps children with speech issues.

Measles wasn’t something we ‘feared’ in my generation growing up. Think about why it’s become a ‘fear’ today and why parents think they must vaccinate. What have they been told versus what they haven’t been told?

MinorityView on
Sun, 4th May 2008 7:36 pm

From a recent CDC comment on the measles outbreak:
“In the prevaccine era, 3 to 4 million measles cases occurred every year, resulting in approximately 450 deaths, 28,000 hospitalizations, and 1,000 children with chronic disabilities from measles encephalitis.”

Compare with the claim of up to 20% may be hospitalized presented by the CDC (quoted in the article above). According to their own numbers the hospitalization rate was .007 % back in the days when measles ran rampant and unchecked through the population.

With regards measles then, how do you explain this:
1. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdi3302k.htm
In an outbreak of 25 cases of measles in Qld in Q1 2009, NONE of the cases were vaccinated. Also, referring to another outbreak, “The number of vaccine doses was known for 57 of the 78 cases, of which none had received 2 doses of a MCV, four (7%) had received 1 dose and 53 (93%) had received no doses: the remaining 21 cases were of unknown vaccination status”
2. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cdi3301c.htm
During an outbreak in Q2 2006 in NSW, of the 33 children with measles, only 6 had received 1 dose of MMR, and the others none. None of the cases had received two doses
Vaccination, it appears, protects! Only people not or under-vaccinated suffered from measles. Why were vaccinated people not diagnosed? Because they didn’t get symptoms.
But that’s OK then if you don’t vaccinate, because, as far as the CDC is concerned:
“In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized. Seventeen percent of measles cases have had one or more complications, such as ear infections, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Pneumonia is present in about six percent of cases and accounts for most of the measles deaths. Although less common, some persons with measles develop encephalitis (swelling of the lining of the brain), resulting in brain damage.”
Don’t worry though.
Brain damage is only rare.

admin on
Sun, 5th Dec 2010 1:48 pm

Michael,
The article doesn’t make any claims about whether the vaccine provides herd immunity. Who are you asking to explain your data?

The article, as has been pointed out several times, is simply comparing what the CDC tells parents with the information the CDC provides to medical professionals. The information doesn’t agree. Why can’t the CDC provide the same information to parents as to medical professionals?

Do you have any comment on the actual content of the story?

If you want to debate herd immunity, I suggest you go argue with John, of whaleto who does deny measles herd immunity.

Insidevaccines takes a complex and subtle position on vaccination. You really need to read a wide range of our articles and start discussing the actual points being raised if you want to be taken seriously.

At the moment, I agree with Marconi. You are a troll and rather clumsy one besides.

“The average cost of measles cases and adverse events following vaccination in industrialised countries”

Can you tease out some facts in this study?

admin on
Wed, 29th Dec 2010 10:28 am

Are we the go-to folks to analyze bad science around vaccines? I guess so. I’ll take it home and have a look as time permits.

admin on
Mon, 3rd Jan 2011 8:04 pm

Augustine, just in case you missed it, our top article analyzes your study. Hope that helps.

Chuck on
Sat, 21st Apr 2012 8:28 pm

The death rate from measles was decreasing prior to the introduction of the vaccine and continues to be reduced to this day. Plain and simple current scientific fact that if all vaccinations stopped, the number of deaths would be no different then they are in all the 21st century. The reason, improved treatment and survivability of pneumonia.

[...] Hopefully this will help you to understand….though I doubt it…..Measles: The Grim Reality : Inside Vaccines [...]

patricia on
Sat, 21st Jul 2012 12:23 pm

Just to confirm the “you can’t have measles because you’re vaccinated” bias.
Granted this is only one person but, my brother, who’s 22, was told that:
a)he was vaccinated even though he thinks he may not have been
b)it was impossible for him to have measles because he was vaccinated
Instead he was told he had a mild viral infection with accompanying measles like rash. To be fair he may have had rubella… (he was told that was impossible too though).